Stephen Hills
Galatians 5:22
Well, well, well. What a subject to start off with. It’s as broad a subject seems in the universe. Thousands of songs have been written, books, movies – a whole burgeoning industry. Is it right or wrong? How do we apply it, understand it, and comprehend it? When we first fell in love, what was that strange force, feelings and emotions that made us do crazy things for someone else; like buying flowers, jewellery, chocolates? There was an invisible drawing power that overcomes our natural reserve, inhibitions, common sense and personalities. It made us do weird things – kissing, cuddling, staying up all night, and who knows what else.
We all need to feel loved and secure in life. Through love, we can get the greatest joy and the greatest pain. Then the heart is right if a person, with pure and honest motives, love flows and brings pleasure. The opposite is true when a heart is distorted by sin. The cross is an example of the greatest joy and pain, and a right heart (who better but Jesus). Our broken world with multiple heart-broken relationships is an example of distorted hearts of sin.
In this passage, the love spoken of is agapé love which means in the Greek: the unconditional love of God – active for His son and people, and an active love His people need to have for others, God and ever our enemies. There are 3 Greek words in the Bible for love, Agapé – God’s love, Philia – friendship love, and Eros – sexual love. We’ve all probably heard about those, the obvious being Eros – translated today as erotic love. But, first and foremost, we need agapé love; it is the lynch pin as it were of all the fruit. Without love for God and others, we cannot have joy, peace, patience etc, it’s nigh impossible. Who wants to be kind or good, if you’re loveless, what’s the point? Who cares about anything or anyone else in this world, if they have no motivation to love? The real focus in this case is self; me first – please me – I want it now mentality of this world. No the real description of love is of course 1 Corinthians 13.
All the fruit – all these character traits we need to have if we call ourselves Christian stem from commands to love. Everything hangs from the commands in Matt 22:37-39. It’s vital we get this point. Why are you here today? Would you even bother to come if you didn’t have some kind of love for God, or being here with other people you know?
I have personally struggled with giving and receiving love all my life. As the love modelled to me growing up was a twisted, conditional, legalistic type, where one must be nice and act in a certain way to receive it. I had to fight for it sort of, not always was it offered or offered freely. A child needs love shown in action and word, it brings life into a child when this happens, and often I got death. The same is true for some of you out there.
Love is the very nature of God. Just like God, he can’t be bottled, packaged, contained, limited in anyway. So is with Love, even time doesn’t affect it, and God is timeless too. To understand love, if we ever can, you must attempt to begin to understand God – the creator of Love. If we enjoy and value love so much, then we must value who instigated it. In our appreciation of its benefits, we can marvel and wonder at the heart of love that it came from. Wow, what a mind boggling thought!
Just imagine of you can, a world without love. No smiles, no hugs, no feelings or emotions, no kind words – no life. Like robots, we would just exist, going about doing work and that’s all. Like the robot Data in Star Trek, he was always trying to understand humans and their emotions and care for each other, wanting to emulate them. Or being like Spock, who was devoid of feelings or emotions, but was humanlike. Can you imagine a world like that? We would be living, but we would have no life – no love.
But a God absolutely bursting with love could never create a world like that – impossible. He desired relationship to share the essence of His character – love. That’s why humankind that’s why Calvary, that’s why salvation. “For God so loved . . .” John 3:16 Love, love, love! So coming from that, the fruit of the spirit might manifest in our lives. We are nothing without love, l we can do nothing of worth without love and we certainly can’t live in eternity without love.
So learn and practice love, not just the lovable, but to the unlovable also.
